UPDATE: THURSDAY 10/11

Hi gang,

My apologies for lack of info on this site. As I noted elsewhere (in a thread that might have been missed by many of you), we're smack dab in the middle of a personnel transition at SEGA.com, and that unfortunately means that I have very little time to attend to a lot of the issues on this board.

I know that's not what you want to hear, but it's the sad fact of the matter for the time being and I'm not going to try to paint it otherwise. Until we get through this transition, and I'm not yet sure when that will be, unfortunately we are going to be pretty scarce here until further notice (and I really hope we can measure "further notice" in weeks rather than months, but it's not up to me!). That being the case, I highly recommend that you register for and visit the Petroglyph boards at http://www.petroglyphgames.com/forums/ for much better and up-to-date Universe at War beta news, suggestions, help for issues, and the like.

On to two big issues with the game:

* The North American ship date for PC has officially been moved from October 30th to early December. As many of you have remarked, the game still needs some time for refinement, and even though you beta participants are playing a build that is a couple months old and has improved immeasurably since then, we still need more time to address your feedback and include it in the game.

* The much-rumored and yet never-seen Patch that will bring the beta up to speed is in fact on its way, but I have no set date as to when that will be. We're through with internal testing but the Patch needs to be certified; the hope is that the process is much smoother than the original beta certification, but we simply have no idea how long it will take and I'm not about to venture a guess. So, for those of you struggling with a myriad of bugs, disconnect issues, etc. on the current beta build, help IS on the way, but I can't tell you exactly when until certification is officially done.

So, all the way around, there's not a lot of good news to be had in this post, but I'm giving you the info as straight as I can. As always, my apologies for not being more available to help, and I'm sorry that we haven't been able to get that Patch out to you yet; I know everyone's waiting for it and I hope you don't have to wait too much longer. I see from the various boards that there are a lot of people playing and enjoying the game, but I know there are a lot of people that are not having fun or simply are unable to play because of bug issues, and we're trying to get those rectified in order to continue the test at a more efficient level for everyone.

I visit there when I visit here, just have been tired of seeing the constant flames of the beta not working. Very glad about the patch though, I just watched the community video and it looks MUCH better than what we have. I'm gonna head over to the certification place and tell them to hurry it up! lol

Yeah, I think it's better to delay the US release date to equate it with the Euro one rather than make the Euro date too soon or have them be too far apart. I know a lot of people over on gamereplays.org won't buy the game if the Euro release is too far behind the US one. Unfortunately, that means days not months, so I hope you guys reconsider precisely when the release will be for both continents, so that it will be as close to simultaneous as possible.

As for the patch, well, I probably won't play that much until it arrives, because I know it will continue to be difficult to get games, but eventually is better than never. I would recommend making sure people know when the patch is released via email, personally, because there are probably quite a few beta testers who are only mildly interested at this point, and won't keep up to date. If you want beta testers to remain playing for the next few months, you gotta make sure the word is out so there's plenty of people online.

A new wave of beta keys would be a good idea as well, at least after the patch has been released.

I visit there when I visit here, just have been tired of seeing the constant flames of the beta not working. Very glad about the patch though, I just watched the community video and it looks MUCH better than what we have. I'm gonna head over to the certification place and tell them to hurry it up! lol

The cert place is in Redmond WA, a couple of blocks from the Nintendo of America HQ, big place you cant miss it.